This invention relates in general to a method and apparatus for disassembling wooden pallets to recover the individual components thereof.
Wooden pallets are commonly used in commerce to handle and carry a wide range of goods and cargo. In particular, pallets are used in the transportation of boxes, crates or bag loads from one place to another. These wooden pallets are typically constructed of a plurality of generally parallel spaced apart ribs positioned between a plurality of parallel slats which are spaced apart from each other and fastened to the top and bottom edges of the ribs at a generally right angle therewith.
Wooden pallets are frequently damaged in use due to the heavy loads carried and to the rough handling to which they are subjected by the lift trucks used in transporting them. The damage typically consists of one or more of the slats or ribs being broken or cracked, making further use of the pallet unsafe. In the past, broken pallets were most often discarded. However, the escalating cost of lumber and the superior strength of aged wood now make it profitable and desirable to salvage the sound boards for use in the construction of new pallets.
Presently, wooden pallets are most often disassembled by hand. In performing this operation, a workman uses a crowbar to forceably pry the slats away from the rib pieces. This technique, however, is time consuming, costly and extremely inefficient since many of the sound boards are broken or cracked as a direct result of this operation.
Another problem often associated with the use of wooden pallets entails the handling of the pallets after they are used in the delivery of goods to a destination customer. Quite often, the destination customer has no further use for the pallets in his business and, as a result, simply discards the pallets as trash. This course of action, however, results in the waste of wood which could be put to good use of the pallets were disassembled.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for quickly and easily disassembling wooden pallets to recover the individual components of such pallets.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus for disassembling wooden pallets in a simple and efficient manner with minimal damage to the sound boards of the pallet.
A further object of the present invention is to provide a method and apparatus for disassembling wooden pallets wherein a pallet may be quickly and easily disassembled by a single operator to reduce the cost of the operation.
It is an additional object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for quickly and easily disassembling wooden pallets of varying widths.
It is yet another object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for disassembling wooden pallets such that the nails used to fasten the slats to the internal ribs of the pallet do not protrude outward from the separated slats thereby making handling of the separated slats safer.
Other and further objects of the invention, together with the features of novelty appurtenant thereto, will appear in the course of the following description.